Here is a list released today of all teams that have ‘expressed their intention of participation’ for RoboCup 2007 in Atlanta. There are 27 teams total (though some teams may be omitted due to spam filters!).

– Impossibles Team
– Team ARAIBO
– Dutch Aibo Team
– UTAustinVilla
– TJArk
– Team Chaos
– The-CAT
– CMDash
– Microsoft Hellhounds
– NUbots
– SpelBots
– UChile
– WrightEagle
– ISocRob 4LL team
– Hamburg Dog Bots
– Twaves
– TecRams
– Northern Bites
– Cerberus
– GermanTeam
– Eagle Knights
– Brown University
– LTU Blue Devils
– Kouretes
– MetroBots
– DEN-INU
– SPQRLegged

Notable absences:

–rUNSWift. Second place finisher from last year. Looks like William Uther, rUNSWift’s leader, one of the main organizers from last year, and one of the dominant forces in RoboCup since its inception, will not be entering his team for another year. I had a chance to talk to Will last year in Bremen and the word was that 2006 was his last year at RoboCup because the organization he worked for was shifting priorities. Sadly, at least from this list, it looks like that fate came true.
–UPenn. I had heard through the grapevine that their participation this year was not certain. David Cohen, their student captain, graduated from UPenn last spring. Here’s hoping that their name was inadvertently forgotten on this list and that participate this year.

Notable additions:
–CMDash. They qualified but didn’t compete last year in Bremen. This year, the word is that they are going to give it a real go for the last (potentially) year of the four-legged league. Awesome.
–MetroBots, LTU Blue Devils, Brown University : three US teams who weren’t in Bremen last year and want to come to Atlanta this year. I suppose the proximity doesn’t hurt!

We shall see how the list shapes up. 27 teams applying and 24 slots means that there will be a lot fewer pissed off teams who don’t qualify. Also, it gives us, a second-year team, a better shot than last year, where 35 teams applied for 27 spots (I just checked the number). The downside of fewer teams applying tells me that some teams don’t have enough Aibos functioning, have moved onto newer, more exciting robot platforms, or simply have just lost their interest in the four-legged league.

The 2007 Rules were supposed to be announced today — I am really looking forward to see them — but I’ve seen no announcement. Hopefully they’ll come soon, as well as the announcement of the 2007 challenges, of which we want to spend a lot of time on this year.